


Choking on Your Alibis

by feverbeats



Category: Bandom RPF
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-30
Updated: 2009-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-05 12:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick has gone white and stiff, and Pete hasn't slept in two days, and he's not ready to answer for what he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choking on Your Alibis

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wordsaremyfaith after the Mr. Brightside kiss of the YWT tour.

"Sometimes," Pete says, "I'm scared of you."

They're sitting in the back of the bus on the way to some sketchy city in Massachusetts, and Pete's blowing off steam with confessions.

Patrick frowns. "Why?"

"I don't know," Pete says, playing chicken with the truth.

"_Pete_," Patrick says. "I'm tired. You're tired. Can you not?"

Pete stretches out his rocker boot in front of him. It's really irritating not to be able to move properly. "Ok. I can. Not."

Patrick sighs sharply. "Pete. Why are you scared of me?"

Pete takes a deep breath. "Because I know you're the only one who could kill me."

Patrick turns away like he didn't hear Pete, and Pete dies a little.

*

"It's not an insult," Pete says that night. They haven't spoken since that afternoon, and it's not really on purpose, but they've been avoiding each other. On a small bus, it shows.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Patrick says.

That hurts worse than the silence.

*

Before they go inside to the venue to tune up, Pete shoves a sheaf of paper in Patrick's face. "Hey." Patrick tries to move around him, but Pete won't let him. "Patrick, I need you to see this stuff." He's so tired his head is spinning.

"What is it?" Patrick asks, voice even more careful and guarded than usual.

"Poetry," Pete says, "Like sometimes, you know, for songs." The words come out all jumbled.

Patrick glances at the papers, probably long enough to read a few words, and then he shoves them back at Pete. "We have a show, Pete." He turns and leaves the bus.

Pete almost lets the papers fall, but instead he glares down at them, not even sure why he's so angry. He reads the stupid, stupid words he wrote, this week or last week or a month ago.

_the rings around my eyes remind me of the rings around saturn  
i wish i was a star, but i'm just a planet, orbiting you_

Stupid. Stupid words. He shakes his head and his eyes blur, probably with exhaustion, as he reads more.

_i'm sick  
sick of trying to reach you through a series of tubes  
sick of not getting any sleep  
just sick, if you believe what you read_

He puts the papers down carefully in one of his bags and heads inside.

*

It was only a kiss.

*

Patrick has gone white and stiff, and Pete hasn't slept in two days, and he's not ready to answer for what he did.

"What did you do that for?" Patrick asks finally. They're back on the bus after the show, and Joe and Andy are giving them some room.

"What?" Pete asks, hoping Patrick will back off, chicken out.

No such luck. "You kissed me. You made me miss a note."

Pete realizes too late that Patrick is actually _hurt_ by this. "Um," he says.

"I felt so _stupid_," Patrick says. "Everyone saw me freak out up there. Why would you _do_ that?"

Oh. Patrick doesn't know why Pete would do that. Pete wants to curl into a little ball or drive home to Ashlee until this feeling goes away, but he's never learned how to get rid of it. It's been years, and he's never been able to explain to Patrick. What's worse, Patrick wouldn't care. Well, he would. He'd bite his lip and apologize a million times, but that would be it.

"Sorry," Pete says emptily.

"Sorry isn't _why_," Patrick says.

"I, I wanted . . . Fuck, Patrick, I just wanted to kiss you." Maybe if he kisses Patrick again, he'll get it.

". . . What?" Patrick says.

Pete wishes he hadn't kissed Patrick so many times as a joke. That would make this easier to do. "Patrick, I wanted to kiss you. I always want to kiss you. Every day. Every second. _Please_. I love you." He's tired of meaning it so much and never having Patrick mean it.

"I," Patrick says after a second, "Your girlfriends. And Mikey, too. They're never good for you. Even if they try to be."

"I can't," Pete says, "What do you mean?" That's not the reaction he expected at all, and he doesn't know what to do with it.

"I couldn't stand being bad for you," Patrick says, and he actually gets up and walks halfway across the dark bus.

"What," Pete says.

"Don't," Patrick says, "_I_ can't."

Every fucking word brings Pete closer to screaming. "But . . ." Shit. It turns out that this is yet another one of his stupid, childish fantasies that will never come true outside his head. The world doesn't look the way he wants it to look and it never will. He can dream all wants, he'll just end up tired and lonely and confused.

"Pete," Patrick says, "There's Lisa. And . . . And God, did it ever occur to you that I might be _terrified_ of this?"

Well, no. Patrick doesn't get scared. Patrick is amazing at everything, especially coping, and now Pete's just helplessly trying to get inside his head and understand him and his fucking perfect relationship with his girlfriend. Things like that, relationships like that, don't happen for Pete. His are messy and broken and he has to try with all his might to pull them together, even for a little while (it never works). Jeanae was too young and broken, Mikey was too prematurely damaged, and Pete's just waiting for Ashlee to turn out wrong, too.

"Pete," Patrick says. "I'm not ready. I can't let you down."

"But," Pete says, confused. "That's not the reason why . . . C'mon. Your girlfriend."

"Yeah, well," Patrick says, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck, "your girlfriend."

"But we could do this," Pete says, trying to understand.

Patrick takes a deep breathe. "All right. We could. You want us to? We will. Ok."

"You're all talk," Pete says, sounding somewhat desperate, even to himself.

"And you're nothing but action. Isn't that the point?"

Pete has no idea what the _point_ is. He got into this business to make music, not points. But Patrick, smart, brave, incredibly scary Patrick seems to think he's putting something coherent together. Something Pete is supposed to be part of. Well, fuck that noise, Pete's not going down without a fight.

Until he looks at Patrick and realizes that what Patrick has been trying to put together this whole time is the two of them. He's been lining the pieces up until everyone can see that they basically can't live without each other. Pete feels trapped.

"Isn't that fair?" Patrick asks, seeing the look on his face. "When you kissed me, you should have expected some damn consequences."

_Oh my God_, Pete thinks, _We're breaking up the band_. And he kisses Patrick, because if he doesn't, if he doesn't do it now, it will be too hard, too far away, too frightening. He waits for Patrick to go still, or even to jerk away like he did on stage, but he doesn't. He raises one hand to Pete's cheek, stroking it, and he kisses back. His lips move on Pete's, and he opens his mouth a little. Pete's fingers tighten convulsively on the front of Patrick's shirt, clutching at his chest.

Pete chokes out a noise almost like a sob, cursing himself for it, but god damn it, he's wanted this for so, so long, and it's _real_. "Are you real?" he whispers.

"Idiot," Patrick snorts, solid and real and safe.

Pete pulls Patrick against him, feeling the breath catch in both their throats. One note, one chord away from losing it or making a wish come true.

"A stitch away from making it," Pete whispers, "and a scar away from falling apart."

"Don't," Patrick whispers. "Don't lie. That one's not about me. None of them ever were."

"They were," Pete says, eyes shut so he doesn't have to try to make out Patrick's expression in the dark. "And not just 'G.I.N.A.S.F.S.,' either. All of them. I gave you all my words, and you never once thought that I meant them for you. I don't get it. Patrick, don't you understand? You're a _god_."

He can feel Patrick almost pull away, start to lose contact. "Don't."

"You're a genius," Pete persists, keeping Patrick there. "You're the reason I'm breathing."

And Patrick presses back against Pete, keeping him upright, and Pete lets new poetry, clean, sleepy, safe poetry run through his head.

_when you say bright, I say side  
when you say gold, I say en_

"I love you," Patrick whispers, almost tentatively.

Pete tightens his fingers on Patrick's wrist. "You, too."


End file.
